Читать книгу A Minor War History Compiled from a Soldier Boy's Letters to "the Girl I Left Behind Me": 1861-1864 онлайн

25 страница из 63

ssss1

Camp Sullivan, Washington, D. C., August 5, 1861.

THE heat today is something awful. We are all just about dead from it—lying about camp and sweltering. I received your letter of the 30th and will answer your questions in turn.

Charlie Farnam is in our regiment as a drummer.

All the boys you specially inquired after are well. Hen. Pillsbury inquires often where “the woman” is and how she is getting along.

As to the talk that we are going to be beaten in this war, that is the veriest bosh. The next time we march towards Richmond we will have force enough to crush our way. We were not beaten this time in the fighting, but by an unfortunate combination of adverse circumstances. Had Johnston’s division been held back by Patterson, as it was expected it would be, we should have beaten them anyway. And even with that reinforcement I am not sure we would not have whipped them in the end, but for that unaccountable panic communicated to two or three broken regiments by teamsters who had driven their teams into places where they were not wanted, and who took the order to change positions as a signal for retreat. Then everything went to pieces before anybody really knew what had happened.